Education was under scrutiny yesterday at the Mary Ward center. The debate, introduced and chaired by Anja Steinbauer from pfa London, was indeed fundamental. What is the value of education, is it formative in the sense that it changes your nature, does it make you a better person or citizen? And how to judge if an education is successful?
Early in the debate, the distinction was made between what one could call conservative education and liberal education. The goal of conservative education being to transfer values, traditions from a generation to another. In simplistic terms, so that children learn to act like their parents. On the other side, the goal of liberal education is to enable critical thinking. It is thus more related to Socratic education, based on the idea that the teacher’s responsibility is not to give answers but to lead his pupils to their own discoveries.
“Learning without thinking is stultifying, thinking without learning is dangerous.” (Confucius)
What also generated debate was if education should serve first societies or their individuals. Do we want to pursue society’s best interest by providing well trained, well educated citizens? Or are we looking to improve lives of the students? The education seems to become more and more utilitarian nowadays, focusing on providing students a job, so that capitalism can be sustained by a qualified work force. How much should education be practical? I remember having chosen to study Science at University because I was curious to know, not because I wanted to become a scientist…
An interesting idea that came up was that the most difficult task of a teacher is to know when the student needs to be taught facts and when he is ready to question them. No point to ask a 5 year old kid to debate Shakespeare, nor even to ask him what he wants to get from his education. Proper education requires to ask the right question at the right time.
What is daunting to realize is that – beyond the practical benefits of education, such as learning how to calculate, read, get a job – our group didn’t manage to come up with a rough idea of what successful education is. The answer is probably multiple: to become a peaceful society? To make people happier? To remember what previous generations did? I have the intuition it would lead to major disagreements if it was really discussed at a community level, because it is so interlinked with the goal of a society, which is barely formulated nor debated. I personally believe education should enable critical thinking and that philosophy should be the central piece of scholarship. I’m not sure if this would necessary make people happier but it would at least give them more choice. Let’s not forget democracy is based on the assumption that every citizen is able to exert a thoughtful criticism of his environment. If not, they become merely markets to be gained with the appropriate advertisement campaigns.
“He that is not used to submit his will to the reason of others when he is young, will scarce hearken to his own reason when he is of an age to make use of it.” (John Locke)
Now, whatever the education you got. I believe it is up to you to make whatever you want with it. You might reject it, embrace it, make it completely change you or just use it as a tool to achieve your initial goals. If you read this post, it is probably because you are searching for information related to philosophy or education (I imagine your disappointment but I hope this article is giving you at least some useful links). What are you pursuing through this self-education? Material goals? Happiness? Change?
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